in line for entry to the Canal. The U.S. Commanding Officer hit the radio immediately, and the Chinese Control Room in Balboa pretended not to understand.
Captain Howarth, like all U.S. Commanding Officers working anywhere near the Canal, had the wording of the Treaty on the Ops Room computer. 'EXPEDITIOUS PASSAGE!' he snapped. 'We demand priority, under the terms of the 1977 Treaty, signed by the President of Panama and the President of the United States of America.'
The Chinese controller understood neither 'expeditious,' prompt, nor buzzing. 'Control now run by us,' he said. 'Not President of United States. Panama give us rights. And right now canal is closed. For very big repair. May take all day, all night. Sorry. You wait now.'
'CLOSED!' yelled Captain Howarth. 'WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, CLOSED!'
'Canal closed,' said the Chinese voice. 'That what I mean. Closed. No entry for you. Lock gates shut.'
'But you let a Russian submarine through there in the last hour,' said Captain Howarth, an edge to his voice.
'Canal not closed then. Canal closed now. Different.'
'Now listen to me,' said the American CO. 'If I have to, I'll have the President of the United States call the President of Panama. But first I shall need you to tell me your name, rank, and number, since you appear unaware you may be causing an international incident right here.'
'No need for you to know name,' said the Chinese voice blandly. 'I'm a civilian. No rank or number. Presidents of countries not run this canal. East China and Pacific Shipping run canal. And we say who goes through and who stays out. Right now canal closed. You stay out till we say you come in.'
Captain Howarth knew he was beaten. It requires the opening of six different sets of lock gates to make one complete transit of the canal. Three sets up. Three down. If these Chinese bastards elected to slam them shut and refuse to open them, there was not a whole lot anyone could do about it. At least not quickly, or expeditiously. He slammed down the telephone and dictated a satellite signal for immediate transmission to the San Diego Base.
'Chinese gatekeepers closed Panama Canal at approximately 1435 (local) “for repairs.' Barracuda entered 1345. Transit should take eight hours minimum. Stand by Atlantic exit 112230APR08. Roosevelt will stand guard Pacific End, Merchant Ship Anchorage, in case of Barracuda course change. Await further orders. Howarth.'
Inside the Canal, up on the two-thirds height level, leading to the Pedro Miguel Lock, Ravi and Ben stood with the pilots on the bridge, watching the shallow waters of the lake slip by on either side of the channel. Ahead they could see the great portals of the lock, and the huge gates that guard the entrance to the chamber, the one in which the water level would shortly rise and lift the Barracuda the final thirty-one feet to the uppermost reaches of the Canal.
As they made their approach, the gates came slowly open.
The pilots paused for the chains of the locomotives to be passed behind the sail, and then, engines cut, they were pulled into the chamber, for the ten-minute elevator ride to the heights. Captain Badr ordered the Barracuda's nuclear reactor shut down, the rods were dropped in, and for the first time since the Kamchatka Peninsula, the heat from the reactor began to die.
Reaching the top, the gates for'ard of the submarine's bow opened, and the great nuclear ship was now under tow. A waiting Chinese Navy tug was attached and pulled her out into the sunlit waterway of the Cukaracha Reach, which forms the Pacific end of the Gaillard Cut.
Brilliant engineering and rawboned United States muscle had hacked a nine-and-a-half-mile channel clean through here, through the Continental dividing range, the terrible mountainous spine of the isthmus, to send the waterway down to the Pacific.
The banks rise up steeply through here, and the channel makes a series of left-right zigzags, a testament to the near impossibility of cleaving a seaway through the jungle foothills of the mountains, the landslides, the rockfalls, the murderous heat, rain-forest fevers, and disease. Thousands and thousands of Frenchmen died along here. And it was no picnic for the Americans, who were tougher and a lot better at it.
The sight of the Chinese pilot on the bridge of the Barracuda, somehow in command of this thoroughly American enterprise, created one of the deepest enigmas in modern geopolitics. There was also an element of the surreal in the fact that former British SAS Major Ray Kerman was right now trying to make an Iranian terrorist's getaway in a Russian submarine with Chinese help.
But that's what was happening. While Captain Howarth fumed out in the Merchant Ship Anchorage, the Pentagon rumbled with fury upon receipt of his satellite signal, and Vice Admiral Morgan was fit to be tied, as he paced his office in the West Wing.
'KATHY!' he bawled. 'Get the Chinese Ambassador in here inside a half hour. And have an ambulance parked in the Rose Garden in case I murder the little fucker.'
Kathy rolled her eyes heavenward, but she did not consider her boss was overreacting. Rarely had she felt such tension in the White House as during the last half hour, since the news came in that China had closed the Panama Canal.
Harcourt Travis, the Secretary of State, was on the line to the Panamanian President, who was secretly terrified of the United States — ever since December 20, 1989, when 26,000 U.S. troops landed in Panama with guns blazing, tanks rolling, and aircraft strafing in Operation Just Cause. Their mission was to capture the corrupt drug czar and President, Gen. Manuel Noriega, who had somewhat rashly declared war on the United States five days previously.
The President of Panama was quite prepared to accept Chinese cash and more or less do their bidding over matters concerning the Canal so long as his country received a fair rake-off from the enormous profits. But he did not much envy General Noriega's present status in a Florida jail, and the thought of an angry United States was apt to strip him of his manhood.
He was occasionally nervous about the ruthless way the Chinese conducted their business. But he was coldbloodedly scared of the United States, especially when they had a Republican President surrounded by tough men who could not give a damn for left-wing rhetoric, Third World demands, and the empty rantings of various national leaders who threatened to 'fight the United States to the death' but could not possibly match Washington's military might. At last count, the number of world nations that could perhaps raise even five percent of Washington's military might added up to one large, fat zero.
The Panamanian President now had a smooth, teak-tough ex-Harvard law professor on the wire telling him it would be a pity if the President of the United States were to get very cross with Panama, because that might prove unproductive to Panama.
The Panamanian was not fluent in the English language, but the icy tone of Harcourt Travis left him in no doubt the Chinese were playing with fire, but the first ass that was going to get kicked was his.
'But, Mr. Travis,' he protested. 'You know full well we handed over control of the Canal to East China and Pacific Shipping, and that we gave them a very free hand to run it efficiently, and as they wished. There is little I can do while that contract is in existence.'
Harcourt Travis sighed and said softly, 'The fact that your predecessor made the unhappy mistake of double-crossing a somewhat witless former President of my country with an illegal agreement with Red China is unlikely to cut much ice with the White House Administration of today. Might I simplify this for you: Mr. President, we want that canal open within two hours, or else.'
'Or else what?' asked the President haplessly. But the line was already dead. And in the mind of the elected leader of the Panamanian nation, there was but one thought, and it involved 26,000 troops landing and opening fire, American tanks rolling through the streets of Panama City, fighter-bombers screaming overhead, helicopter gunships clattering above the street.
He'd seen it before, run for his own life before the 1989 U.S. onslaught. 'Merde,' breathed the Panamanian leader, in the unmistakable Spanish of south Central America.
He summoned his Ministers and then put in a call to the Chinese Ambassador on his direct Embassy line in the ritzy Punta Paitilla area of the city.
The connection took less than three minutes, and the Ambassador was as helpful as the President knew he would be. I understand there is some difficulty at the Miraflores Lock… Yes, yes, I realize Americans may be displeased… 1 am afraid there is nothing I can do… Canal operates entirely independently of Chinese Government…
